WISPA and Wireless Innovation Alliance (WIA) have been working with
Congressional Representatives over the past few months with Steve Coran,
our Association lawyer, attending many meetings on our behalf. A clear
agenda of promoting our views is well established and as Congress grows
closer to voting on bills we would like to send a reminder letter with
our coordinated message to key members of Congress.
As we have done before WIA and the WISPA Board and Legislative Committee
greatly appreciates when we put these letters together to show a unified
front by putting the names of our supporters on those letters. At this
time we are once again asking for your support, even if you have signed
on for previous letters. We simply need your name and company name this
time.
If you would email those two items back to me at
[email protected] and please leave the Subject line as it is
I would appreciate it. I will post this request tomorrow, the deadline
for signing up is 8PM Pacific on Thursday (11PM ET). I will forward
your information to WIA who will then circulate it on behalf of you and
WISPA.
Below please find the letter and I appreciate your participation in
getting our message to the right people to preserve the future of our
goals and the freedom of the Internet to continue to expand.
Thank you,
Forbes Mercy
WISPA VP/Legislative Chair
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THIS IS A DRAFT LETTER NEAR FINAL FORM:
February xx. 2012
The Honorable Harry Reid
522 Hart Senate Office Building
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
The Honorable John Boehner
1011 Longworth House Office Building
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
The Honorable Jay Rockefeller
531 Hart Senate Office Building
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
The Honorable Fred Upton
2183 Rayburn House Office Building
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
The Honorable Mitch McConnell
317 Russell Senate Office Building
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
235 Cannon House Office Building
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
The Honorable Kay Bailey Hutchison
284 Russell Senate Office Building
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
The Honorable Henry Waxman
2204 Rayburn House Office Building
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
Senators and Representatives:
The broad group of undersigned companies, trade associations, and public
interest groups writes to reaffirm our support for spectrum reform
legislation that will ensure that commercial users, public safety, and
federal users all have access to wireless capacity to meet our ever
growing needs. However, as Congress considers that legislation, it must
ensure the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) maintains its
flexibility as an expert independent agency to make more spectrum
available for a diversity of uses.
It is particularly critical that some of the "beachfront" spectrum
located in the television bands remain available for unlicensed
services, which are driving innovation and creating new services in the
wireless ecosystem.We need unlicensed access to ensure that commercial
deployments like the one recently launched in Wilmington, North Carolina
spread throughout the country. And we must ensure that the United States
does not lose its global leadership position to other countries -- just
last week, the UK regulator, OfCom, authorized commercial use of
broadcast spectrum white spaces for the 2012 London Summer Olympics.The
rest of the world is not waiting, and nor should we.
To that end, we reiterate our concern that certain provisions contained
in the House's Jumpstarting Opportunity With Broadband Spectrum Act
(JOBS Act) could impose harmful constraints on the ability of the FCC to
make appropriate spectrum allocation decisions and to design a
successful auction of licensed frequencies that will raise revenue,
support vibrant competition, technological innovation, and rural
broadband deployment. As numerous noted economists have stressed,
preserving FCC flexibility will allow the Commission to design such
auctions. We urge Senate and House negotiators to modify these
provisions to preserve the FCC's existing authority to respond to
changes in this continually evolving and dynamic market.
Under its existing authority to find the right balance between licensed
and unlicensed spectrum access, the FCC has successfully auctioned
commercial licenses to use spectrum since the mid-1990s, raising over
$50 billion for the U.S. Treasury and driving growth of the wireless
industry to over $150 billion in annual revenue, with mobile phone
penetration now at over 90% of the population. At the same time, the
FCC's judicious use of flexible authority has simultaneously created an
unlicensed industry that generates an estimated $50 billion annually for
the American economy, and has made America the world-leader in
development of wireless technology from LTE to Wi-Fi to broadcast band
white spaces technology.
We applaud both the Senate and House Committees, from both parties, for
their tireless work to develop bipartisan legislation that will promote
public safety, create jobs, enhance competition, and foster even greater
innovation.We remain fully committed to working with Congress to pass
legislation that allows us to fully unlock the power of the wireless
revolution.
Sincerely,
_______________________________________________
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